Bad Wolf
by Gothic Guardian
Summary: AU fic. Rose doesn't let the Doctor kiss her, thus keeping the BadWolf Time Goddess within her. Like the Phoenix she will rise from her ashes, but will she be the same?
1. Chapter 1

Flames licking... acrid tendrils dancing black amid the golden glow. Crimson embers dancing brightly amid ebony. Searing pain plays along scorched flesh... numbing, freezing, burning pain.

Her thoughts are rampant, yet unsettled... undefined. All she can think is the pain inflicted, the light making the shadows dance around her. No way out, no ease to the scalding arid force around her.

Tears stinging salty trails down her fractured flesh and she falls to her knees; too much power, too much energy. The cooling, aching trails dry almost instantly, salt burning like acid to the exposed nerves. "Doc... tor..." She calls, reaching out to the leather-clad man standing before her. Fear and sorrow etched in his features, he's helpless. There was nothing he could do now, it was too late. The power from within, a force no mortal was meant to bare, was consuming her.

Golden light, flaming power emanates from her aching, dying body. Tiny spasms wrack her weakened, fragile form. Every movement hurt, every breath, every tiny shiver. Heat and cold enveloped her, the acrid smoke of burnt flesh making her head throb, pulsing along with the power inside her. Forward, she falls to her hands, left arm shaking while her right stretches for the man she trusted. The man who SWORE he'd protect her, who swore he'd keep her safe. She'd come back for him. Into the heart of the TARDIS she had gazed, absorbing a power above and beyond herself, for him. Now he was powerless to save her.

Everything, past, present, and future, she knew. The entire Universe was forced into her, devouring her from within. She knew she'd come back, she could see it, she could see ALL outcomes. She knew what would happen, if she'd let him take the Vortex from her, if she let him 'save' her. Willingly, he�d give his own life for her, she knew that, but she couldn't let him, not when she knew she'd come back... But now, as the Vortex ate her up, as the power she'd taken to save him, was burning away everything... she wanted nothing more than to let him. It was within her power, a simple temporal reversal, and a minor one, at that, for the Bad Wolf, the Time Goddess, it was nothing, not even a flick of the wrist.

But she couldn't. Rose, the young woman so out of her element, couldn't let him give up his life, his visage, his being, just for her. She came on a rescue mission, she'd be damned if she ended up the one needing rescuing. Above the scorched flesh and Dalek ash, she could smell his fear; fear of losing her, of having broken a promise, of being once more alone. Were it not for the acidic, smoky taste on her tongue, she could almost taste it.

"I'm sorry..." His words cut through the roar in her ears, and the deafening echoing silence in his own. "I'm so sorry." He didn't know what else to say. What else was there to say? He couldn't save her; she didn't let him. She'd pushed him away, when he tried... now it's too late. She was burning alive, with a power beyond reckoning, and he was helpless to do anything but watch.

Cracked lips parting as she forces a smile, a mere ghost of her former enthusiasm and life. There was nothing she wanted more, than to reassure him, to tell him it was all right. But it wasn't, not yet. The pain was too strong, too overwhelming, to be all right. It was all she could do to not pass out from the pain. Especially as her arm gave way, dropping her to the cold metal floor of the game station with a dull, clanking thump. The soothing coolness of the metal draws a sigh from her burnt, cracked lips, though the solace is fleeting. New waves of pain course through her, drawing her in upon herself in a fetal position.

Death, closing in on her, she could feel it... pulling the dark edges further into her vision. The Time Goddess in her knew, rationally, that she would come back, that she'd be all right. The power would burn her up... but like the Phoenix, she'd rise from her own ashes, whole and unscathed... with a reminiscence of a power tying her to her Doctor, '/Together forever./' They'd agreed, in another timeline that hadn't even happened yet. A timeline that - with the power she held - she was making sure was never going to happen. She'd make sure they were together forever, rather than the broken promises of the other timeline.

Rose Tyler, stubborn human, merged seamlessly with the sentience of the Time Goddess. They deserved a happy ending and through her own selfishness she�d see that it came to pass. Or that was the plan. The pain, however, she didn't count on its intensity, and the immensity of it... The selfish little girl in her fought it, wanting her Doctor to hold her, comfort her... take away the hurt. It was that selfish little girl that fought to keep her vision, fought the inky dark of oblivion as long as she could... The last sight in her eyes, before the eternal dark of death overcame her willpower, was his panic, his fear, filling his usually mirth-sparkling cerulean ones. 


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor watched as his friend, his /Companion/ faced oblivion, unable to do anything to help. If only she hadn't pushed him away, if only she weren't so stubborn. 'Then what? Aren't her stubbornness and ferocity her biggest assets?' He thinks to himself, watching in horror, as her skin cracks and peels. Nothing he could do... hearts wrenching in fear and pain, as she writhes in agony upon the cold metal floor. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Is all he can murmur, unsure even if she can hear him, over her own screams of anguish.

There's nothing more he can do, and nothing more he wishes than to close his eyes and block his senses. But he owes her at least that much, to watch... to bare witness. The acrid smell of her burning flesh sears his throat and lungs, making him want to hold his breath (He could hold it quite a while, after all). But he forces himself to breathe in, inhale the smell of his dying assistant, unable to save her.

Her body gleams with an inner light, blinding to both of them. Golden hues play among the shadows around him, around /them/, giving life where there was none. The once pale skin of Rose Tyler, now as blackened as burnt meat, crackles off, drifting off in ashes. The exposed muscle and tissue beneath glimmers in the golden light; before they, too, darken and crackle... burn. Tears fill the cerulean pools if the Doctor's eyes, causing the sight before him to waiver a moment. 'Just the smoke...' He lies to himself, knowing full well the truth behind the shimmering droplets that fall in soft plonks to the steel floor. Forever, or perhaps mere moments, pass; the Doctor frozen by his own emotions, time irrelevant. The body had turned to nothing, shrivvled up and turned to dust, before his very eyes. His Rose, his best mate... He'd SWORN he would protect her. Promised her mother, promised HER. Only now there was no hope. No one, not even a Time Lord, should contain such power... none COULD. It was more than any life-form could bare, save the TARDISes, who were built... /grown/ to do just that.

His Rose had paid the price, for his heroics; paid the ultimate price. A life forsaken, lost in its prime, in an attempt to protect an old fool such as himself. It wasn't fair. So many had come and gone, so many had been forsaken... lost. Even his entire race had been sacrificed. 'And for /what/? So that one pathetic old Time Lord could live a little longer?' That wasn't fair to think, and he knew it. His race died to save the Universe, and everyone in it. To think otherwise would be utter selfishness on his part. But how could he not think that way? When he was losing so many, and often times to save him. Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric, Kamelion, Jack... So many losses, each one weighing heavily on his soul.

Turning away, with heavy hearts, he heads back towards his TARDIS, the last and only companion remaining... in a sense. The golden dust of Rose glimmers in the artificial light of the space station, a mocking to his already fragile emotions. /"Doctor..."/ Her voice haunts, echoing from everywhere and nowhere. He's beyond caring where the voice emminate from; it was nothing but a ghost, there to torment.

/"Doctor."/ The voice insists, gaining substance, reality. Golden dust swirls around him, ashen remains of his Rose dancing on the nonexistant breeze of the otherwise dead metal construct. He was the last living soul aboard; everyone else having been killed by the Daleks, or escaped long ago. /"Doctor..."/ Again, the voice insists on gaining his attention. The swirls of ashen gold dust begin to coalesce, gaining as much substance as the voice behind it. The light shimmered on the specks, making them seem to glow with their own inner luminance. The shape takes on a more human demeanour, looking more and more like his flaxen haired friend.

"Doctor, it's me..." The voice gains coherence, sounding more and more like Rose, even as the form emiting the sound gains said person's visage. But it couldn't be... could it? It was impossible. Rose Tyler was dead. Devoured by the flames of her own err. Right in front of his eyes, she'd combusted, burnt to nothing, ash on the proverbial wind, so to speak. How could she be here, now? It was impossible!

A ghost of a smile crosses all too familiar lips. "And since when has the word 'impossible' ever stopped us before, eh?" She inquires, the same tone she's borne on so many occasions. Sly, with a hint of mischief; a tone that told him, even before he'd checked his read-outs, that there was an adventure on the horizon. A tone he never thought he'd hear again. But surely... it couldn't be... He'd watched her burn.

As if reading his mind, and in fact she just might have been, her smile broadens into a Cheshire grin. "Bad Wolf, remember? Like a Phoenix, rising from her ashes, so now, does the Bad Wolf rise again." A slight glimmer of something passes her voice, a thread of the Time Goddess voice she'd borne so recently, just before the power devoured her. "She is me, and I am she... we are one now... Together forever." Two voices blend in harmony; the Bad Wolf/Time Goddess, and the familiar Rose. /'I really hope the voice isn't perminant.'/ The Time Lord thinks, unsure why such a mundane thought cropped up at such an inopportune time. There he was, facing a now Goddess-ified Rose, and all he could think of was the quality of her voice? What was wrong with that picture?

"It's alright." The Time Goddess drained from her tone, leaving the familiar London accent of his young friend. "I'll try not to do that anymore, a'right?" He couldn't be sure, but it sounded to him like she was forcing her accent to go rougher, as un-aetheral as she could get, giving it even more familiarity, though in a less pleasant manner.

With a slight shudder (that was only partly faked), he forces a playfully disgusted expression to cross his face, though worry still clouds his pale blue eyes. "You know, you sound just like your mother when you do that... Almost more frightening than that daemonic voice you got a moment ago." It wasn't for certain that she was really back; but then, it wasn't certain she was really gone, either. So for now, he was keeping it as light as he could. It was better that way. At least until the TARDIS was able to analyse the situation, and confirm or deny whatever had happened to her; if it really was her anymore... 


End file.
